Democratic Party, "Strengthening Party Member Authority" Party Convention Rules 'Late Confirmation'

92% Approval by Central Committee Members Confirms Delayed Decision
Failure to Meet '90 Days Prior Confirmation' Rule in Party Charter
Jeondae Preparation Committee Finalized Election Rules on 28th Last Month

The Democratic Party of Korea finalized the rules for the August 18 National Party Members' Convention (Jeondae) 40 days in advance. From this convention onward, the Democratic Party will apply rules that increase the voting weight of party members with voting rights.

The Democratic Party Central Committee passed the 'Party Constitution Amendment' agenda through a vote at 3 p.m. on the 8th. According to the Democratic Party's constitution, the convention rules must be revised at least 90 days before the candidate registration date. According to the constitution, the revised rules should have been finalized on April 10. Considering this, the Democratic Party established a special provision allowing the party constitution not to be strictly followed only for this convention, citing the late formation of the National Party Convention Preparation Committee (Jeondae Preparation Committee) ahead of this convention. Out of 566 total central committee members, 438 (77.4%) participated in the vote, with 404 (92.2%) in favor and 34 (7.8%) against.

Park Chan-dae, Acting Party Leader and Floor Leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, is speaking at the 5th Central Committee meeting held at the National Assembly on the 8th. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

The Democratic Party Jeondae Preparation Committee held a full meeting on the 28th of last month to set the election regulations for the party leader, supreme council members, and city/provincial party chairpersons. The Jeondae Preparation Committee decided to newly reflect 25% of the vote from party members with voting rights in the party leader preliminary primary. Previously, it was 70% central committee members and 30% public opinion polls, but these were reduced to 50% and 25%, respectively. In the main primary, the proportion of delegates was reduced (30% -> 14%) and the proportion of party members with voting rights was increased (40% -> 56%).

If there were no special provisions, the above changes would have to be applied from the next convention, but the Democratic Party created an exceptional supplementary clause allowing these changes to be applied starting from this convention. Lee Chun-seok, the Jeondae Preparation Committee Chairperson, explained the agenda in the morning, saying, "The Jeondae Preparation Committee was formed 53 days ago, and the election regulations were prepared afterward, so it was physically impossible to comply with the 90-day advance confirmation (party constitution)." He added, "There was a precedent in 2018 where a supplementary clause was unavoidably created," and "In the future, the Jeondae Preparation Committee will carefully review ways to make the party constitution more realistic."

The Democratic Party Jeondae preliminary primary is scheduled for the 14th. If there are four or more candidates for party leader and nine or more candidates for supreme council members, the preliminary primary will narrow them down to three and eight candidates, respectively.